Chapter Fifty-Two
MIRIAM
CHILDREN OF the Flame Compound
Punishing Cell
The door shut with a heavy click, sealing Gabrial’s poison behind it. His words still scraped raw in my ears: Zeke took what belongs to me. My flame. My chosen.
I sat stiff on the bench, nails biting crescents into my knees. The cold of the stone seeped into my bones, but it was nothing compared to the chill inside me. My mind betrayed me, dragging me backward. Back to the night I tried to run.
I remember Zeke’s hand in mine. Small. Warm. Trembling. We were almost to the door. My chest hammered so loud I was sure the whole compound would hear it. Just a few more steps, I told myself. Just a few more steps and we’d be free.
I reached for the latch.
The door slammed shut.
Tolen stood there, filling the frame like he’d been waiting all along.
“You disobeyed,” he said, calm as judgment. No rage. No heat. Just certainty.
His jacket was gone, sleeves rolled, his belt coiled in his hand. His face shone with sweat. His eyes with satisfaction.
Zeke froze at my side. My son. My reason. His tiny fingers clutched tighter around mine, squeezing until it hurt. His chest rose and fell too fast, shallow breaths he was trying to hide. His eyes—wide, wet—were locked on the man who called himself father. He didn’t cry. He hadn’t cried in months.
“I heard what you told the others,” Tolen said as he stepped closer, voice heavy with doctrine. “You think we’re wrong. That I’m wrong.”
He grabbed my arm before I could move, his grip bruising, twisting until my shoulder screamed. I bit down on a cry, not wanting Zeke to hear it.
“I think you’re sick,” I told him, my voice shaking but steady enough to stand. “You’ve twisted faith into something ugly. And I won’t let you take him.”
Tolen’s eyes dropped to Zeke. That long, claiming look that made my stomach twist. Zeke’s nails dug into my palm. His lips parted, a breath catching in his throat like he wanted to speak, but no sound came.
Then Tolen looked back at me.
“You were chosen,” he said. “The Prophet hand-picked you to carry the flame. And you’d throw it all away—for what? For a boy who doesn’t even know what he is?”
He yanked me closer, his belt snapping against the floor, leather hissing. He raised it like he’d done before. Zeke flinched hard, his whole body jerking, but no cry left him. Just silence.
“I should burn you for this,” Tolen growled, his breath sour with wine. “I’ll take him, Miriam. He’ll learn obedience without you poisoning him.”
Zeke whimpered then—a broken, strangled sound. His arms shot around my waist, his face pressed into me, shaking.
Something inside me broke.
My fingers closed around the revolver hidden beneath my skirt. Cold steel. My last secret. The weight steadied me even as my hands trembled.
For one heartbeat, I shut my eyes.
Please.
Not to their God. Not to the Prophet. To anyone, anything, listening. To shadows. To silence. To fate. Don’t let him take my son.
Tolen’s hand lifted again, the belt tightening in his fist.
And I pulled the trigger.
The crack tore through the house like thunder.
Tolen’s eyes went wide, his face breaking into disbelief. He stumbled, blood blooming fast across his shirt. He hit the table, then the floor.
I didn’t look at him again. Couldn’t.
Zeke’s grip on me was crushing. His nails dug into my side. He turned his head despite my hand pushing gently against it, his wide eyes finding the blood, the body. His lips trembled, but still—no sound. Only silence.
“Come here, baby,” I whispered, pulling him tighter. “We’re leaving. Now.”
I pressed his face into me, shielding him, even as my own lungs burned. My eyes caught the lantern on the table. I grabbed it, hurled it against the floor. Glass shattered. Flames raced up the wood, climbing fast, curling toward Tolen’s still body. Smoke bit my throat, acrid and burning.
The fire would spread quick but not far. They’d contain it. They always did. But Tolen would be ash.
And we would be gone.
I pulled Zeke with me, his little legs stumbling to keep up, his grip bruising my hand. We slipped out the back, past the garden gone to weeds, past the cabins where the sheep slept.
By the time we reached the trees, shouts had already risen. Buckets. Boots pounding. They would put it out. They’d save the compound.
But Tolen was dead.
And we were free.
I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.
I had no plan. No sanctuary. Only his hand in mine. Only his life bound to mine.
I would save him, or I would die trying.
The cold pressed back in, dragging me to the present. Stone walls. Silence. My nails still dug into my palms as though the revolver were there.
Zeke buried that night. He never spoke of it. Never whispered a word of the shot, the blood, the fire. Not to me. Not to anyone.
Children bury what they cannot carry. I told myself that over and over. That silence was his shield. That it kept him safe.
But sometimes, in the dark, I wonder.
I wonder if he buried it because he had already been taught how. Because even then, he knew the price of speaking. The Prophet taught us all that silence was obedience. That silence was survival.
And my son—my sweet, wide-eyed boy—learned too young how to keep his mouth closed, how to swallow pain until it burned holes inside him.
One day, those memories will claw their way back. And when they do, I fear it won’t be me he blames.
It will be himself.